Software Architect

Salesforce•Palo Alto, CA

1d•$218,400 - $401,400

About The Position

Salesforce is seeking a Software Architect to drive architecture for mission-critical products and services. The role defines architectural principles, frameworks, and standards to support enterprise-grade scalability and reliability, and works with senior business and technology leaders to translate complex challenges into technical roadmaps and long-range product strategy. It includes integrating AI components into the platform, hands-on development and proof-of-concepts to validate architectural patterns, mentoring engineers, improving platform reliability, and participating in an on-call rotation. The position calls for extensive hands-on software development experience and a record of designing, building, and delivering complex enterprise systems. The architect will work across distributed systems, backend technologies, and cloud-native platforms, and contribute to products developed through short Agile release cycles. Salesforce describes an AI-oriented engineering culture and offers benefits including time off, medical, dental and vision coverage, mental health support, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and an employee stock purchasing program. The stated annual base salary range is $218,400–$365,200, with a range of $263,200–$401,400 in select San Francisco and New York City metropolitan areas; these ranges exclude bonuses, equity, and benefits.

Requirements

15+ years of hands-on software development experience; 20+ years preferred.
Track record of designing, building, and delivering large, complex, enterprise-grade systems.
Deep expertise in distributed systems, backend technologies, and cloud-native platforms.
Experience with cloud environments such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Alibaba Cloud.
Experience setting long-term design strategies spanning multiple complex projects.
Experience crafting and presenting strategic technical reports to executive audiences.
Comfort working within short release cycles using Agile methodologies such as Scrum across the full software development lifecycle.
Proven experience architecting and implementing distributed systems and cloud-native solutions at enterprise scale.
Experience independently delivering strategic technical reports and presentations to executive leadership and external audiences.
Strong informal mentorship experience and a passion for developing engineering talent and fostering open, cross-functional technical discussion.
Experience working on publicly released, multi-release products using Agile methodologies.

Nice To Haves

Take an AI-first approach to engineering, using AI to move faster and build fluency across the stack.
Hands-on experience with AI development tools such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex, or Cursor.
Advanced prompt engineering skills and experience shaping system context for reliable, production-ready AI outputs.
Experience with Alibaba Cloud specifically, in addition to AWS and GCP.

Responsibilities

Drive end-to-end architecture for mission-critical products and services, defining architectural principles, frameworks, and standards for enterprise-grade scalability and reliability.
Partner with senior business and technology leaders to translate complex challenges into actionable technical roadmaps and long-range product strategy.
Spearhead integration of AI components into the platform.
Perform hands-on development and build proof-of-concepts to validate new architectural patterns.
Mentor engineers across a large organization and champion continuous improvement in platform reliability.
Participate in the on-call rotation to help resolve complex, real-time issues.
Create and present strategic technical reports to executive audiences and external audiences.